The WISE-WFD database contains data from River Basin Management Plans reported by EU Members States according to article 13 of the Water Framework Directive. The full database is quite complex and not yet made available for public download. However, a number of aggregation queries have been made, these aggregation queries extract data from the database and present it as data tables that can be downloaded in Excel format.
Most of the reported data are considered final, however, in some cases they are considered provisional by Member States. The aggregation tables are updated when the underlying WFD Database is updated with new or corrected data. It is therefore important to associate the use of any information in the tables with the date in which data was retrieved.
The tables are organised for an access at various levels of overviews versus details - aggregated at country, river basin district (RBD) or in some cases even RBD-subunit level.

Additional information

According to the WFD, from 22 December 2009, the RBMPs should be available for all RBDs across the EU. There are, however, serious delays in some parts of the EU, and in some countries consultations are still on-going.

In May 2012, data from 161 RBDs was uploaded by Member States and incorporated into the WISE-WFD database. The WISE-WFD database also included data from Member States (Portugal, Spain, and Greece) that have not yet adopted RBMPs. There is still missing reporting from some Member States and RBDs, and reporting is incomplete on some issues.

In addition to the River Basin Management Plans (RBMPs), Member States have reported a comprehensive set of data related to the results of the RBMPs (such as ecological status for each individual water body or significant pressures affecting a water body) to WISE (Water Information System for Europe). The EEA has a central role in the management of WISE due to the Agency’s role as the EU Data Centre for water. The reporting of RBMP data is described in the WFD-CIS Guidance No 21 (EC, 2009c).

The development of the queries aims at supporting a number of assessment reports prepared by the European Commission and EEA. Some technical insight and familiarity with the terms and contexts used for the implementation of the WFD is required to make use of the tables.

The data for characterising the status of water bodies (ecological, chemical, quantitative) can either be assessed by their numbers or by aggregations weighted by length of rivers or area of other water bodies. Both methods have advantages and drawbacks and aggregations from both methods are included in the tables.

Tables can be exported directly into Excel and downloaded for any further use, e.g. in research projects.